Angol goes off the rails
When the train stopped dead for the eighth time I began to worry that my sanity would not hold. The idea of climbing through the window, tearing off my clothes and spending the rest of my life living as a wild man in the forest began to sound like a sane and attractive alternative. I shifted my knees for the nine thousandth time so I wasn't rubbing legs with the fellow sufferer in the seat opposite. I would gladly have stabbed him for the extra legroom. I wondered if I could get away with dragging him into the forest with me as a source of food. I'm sure he was thinking the same. Poland's first rail-based cannibalism case was only just avoided when the train lurched into something like forward motion.
Despite what casual readers of this column might believe, I'm very rarely negative about Poland. Unfortunately it's very hard to say anything about the Polish rail network that isn't negative. The only positive thing I can think of is that nobody ever died from rapid acceleration on a Polish train.
The Polish train system has to be one of the worst in the developed world. Everything about it is bad. The infrastructure is rapidly collapsing, the trains are unbelievably slow, the carriages are outdated, the stations are decrepit and the staff are about as helpful as prison guards. I'm sure Poles find this just as annoying and inconvenient as I do, but I am surprised they don't complain about it more often and more loudly. It's particularly surprising since other forms of Polish public transport are so good.
The number one problem with Polish trains is the extraordinary amount of time it takes them to get anywhere. Trains are supposed to provide mass public transport. They're got the 'mass' part right but seem to be a bit confused about the 'transport' idea. A cross-country journey from Kraków to Gdansk takes nine hours. I assumed this was a joke the first time I heard it. I expect to be able to cross most of a continent in nine hours, not part of a medium-sized country. An equivalent train journey in the UK, from London to Edinburgh, takes half that time and covers a distance 50 kilometres greater—and British trains aren't even good. The latest generation French trains will transport you a thousand kilometres before a Polish train has wheezed out of the station.
The Kraków-to-Gdansk journey is actually startlingly rapid compared to other routes. For example, it takes the best part of five hours to get from Wrocław to Kraków by train—a journey of just 230 km at a terrifying average speed of 46 km/h. The result of this feeble performance is that millions of Poles are staying away from trains and getting in cars and busses instead. In the 1980s there were a billion passenger journeys on Polish trains every year. By last year that figure had fallen by more than 60 percent. Poland's formerly impressive 24,000 km of railway lines has fallen to 19,000 km and more are expected to close soon. No new lines have been built in the past 20 years.
Apparently nothing at all is being done to improve the situation. People tell me that all the money is being spent on building roads instead, but there don’t seem to be any new roads. The modest few hundred kilometres of new highway that was supposed to be built before Euro 2012, won’t be. When I mention these facts Poles complain that Poland is a poor country and can’t afford new things. This is usually immediately after they have told me how amazingly successful the Polish economy is. There is a plan to build high-speed rail links between Poland’s major cities that would cut journey times by two thirds. I assume this will happen shortly after a woman is elected Pope.